"There is no doubt in my mind or in the minds of any of
my campaign staff that the shutdown cost me the election."

Though Republican Steve Lonegan publicly supported the
shutdown of the federal government during his campaign for U.S. Senate, the
conservative former mayor said the timing of it crushed his chance at victory.

"There is no doubt in my mind or in the minds of any of
my campaign staff that the shutdown cost me the election," Lonegan said in
a post-mortem interview today. "If I had
known it was going to happen and that it was going to be handled so badly in
Washington, I wouldn't have run for senate."

Lonegan said the momentum in the race was on his side prior
to Oct. 1 and polls showed him making up ground on what was thought to be an
insurmountable 35 point lead enjoyed by his opponent, Democrat
Cory Booker.

A Sept. 24 Quinnipiac poll put Lonegan 12 points behind and
a Sept. 30 Monmouth University poll showed him down by 13. He would eventually lose the race by 11.

But those polls don't tell the whole story, Lonegan said.

"Our polls showed us gaining fast," he said.
"We'd see one that had us two or three down one night or one that had us
up. By Oct. 1, when (Texas Gov.) Rick
Perry came to town, our momentum was enormous."

Lonegan said his campaign strategy was to gain national
attention for the race and hopefully close within 10, then spend the final two
weeks of the race pounding away on Obamacare.

Then the shutdown hit, Lonegan said, taking what could have
been a two-week push on the disasters surrounding the rollout of the president's
signature achievement and turning it into a 14-day national lambasting of the
Tea Party.

"The Republicans in Washington fumbled it terribly and
it became all about the shutdown and the debacle of Obamacare's launch was lost,"
he said.

The awful messaging culminated, Lonegan said, when Republican
U.S. Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham attacked Tea Party Republicans for
shutting down the government.

"They drove a stake into our heart," Lonegan
said. "That's the first time we
started to see the momentum move against us. They both should be primaried for
what they did."

Lonegan said by the fifth day of the shutdown, which began
on Oct. 1 and lasted until Oct. 16, the damage was obvious.

"It became palpable that the shutdown was going to kill
us," he said.

So why did he publicly say he supported it and even that he
would have sided with the faction of the party that pushed for it?

"I had no choice," he said. "You either have
to attack your party or be a team player. I was a team player."

But not everyone shares Lonegan's assessment of his
chances. Monmouth University pollster
Patrick Murray, who conducted several polls throughout the campaign and
predicted the final result within a point, said Lonegan was never moving that
fast.

"He was down 16 in August and 13 in September, a day
before the shutdown," he said.
"I'm not sure what kind of momentum that represents. Maybe if the race had been held in March he might
have been able to catch up. It was never
closing that fast."

As for the fallout from the election and the shutdown,
Lonegan said Republicans missed a huge opportunity.

"Republicans had a chance to win a U.S. Senate seat and
in the process send a powerful message to Obama and instead they shut down
government with no message and no game plan," he said. "I was probably
the single biggest casualty of their mistake."